40 Weeks

Technically speaking, I'm only 39 weeks and 6 days and my due date isn't until tomorrow but today, Sunday, I was dressed and my hair was brushed and my husband was home. With the stars all aligned, we decided that we should do a due date photo shoot. Baby boy still has about 24 hours to be "on time" but chances are he will be late and induced on April 5th. Also, this weekend, Charlie got some nasty sickness and is fevery and vomity so we wouldn't mind if baby brother took a little more time cooking on the inside while Charlie gets better, also, I don't really want to make anyone watch my grumpy, sick toddler while we are in the hospital. (This may or may not be causing me significant stress)  

Anyway, back to our photo shoot...any photo shoot with Max turns out to be a laugh attack and then digresses into Max burying himself into our bushes..?..

Moving On....here is my massively huge belly at (almost) 40 weeks!

And then there is my dreamy husband!

And there you have it. We are excited for baby brother to come and eager for Charlie to get healthy!

Movie under the stars!

As part of "the waiting game," I decided to have a little party to distract myself. With the weather getting warmer we decided to try an outdoor projector movie night again, this time we chose to watch Frozen! Charlie (and pretty much every child and adult we've met) is a big fan of this movie. We also have been wanting to get to know a couple families from our church, so it was fun to have some new friends over. This movie night was much more successful than our freezing January movie night. We had two families and my mom come. A bunch of other people were out of town for Spring Break and others didn't want to keep their kids up that late. We couldn't really start the movie until 7:30ish because that is when the sun set but we decided it would be totally worth it to keep Charlie up late for this fun event. Everyone brought some snacks to share and we made popcorn. Charlie and Cora were enthralled in the movie, Baby Oaklyn was tired and fell asleep. And the brand new baby Charlotte slept through the whole thing. It was quite the success and it didn't even get very cold. We were also able to get to know these friends better which is always a plus! I didn't take any pictures during the movie because it was dark so this is the one picture Max took on his phone after the movie. 

Charlie has made a new good friend. Cora is a whole year older than Charlie but much tinier. I think Charlie was excited about his new friend. (Or the fact that it was 10 pm and he was still up playing) 

38 weeks

On Sunday we decided to take some 38 week photos of this massive baby gut I have. You may remember This Photo Shoot from 2.5 years ago. 

We didn't have anyone to help with the photos so Max took some, I hope to have someone take some of us together in the next couple of days. We took a whole bunch of photos but I was appalled by how huge my rump looked in this dress so this is the only one I will put up for now. Haha!

My body is getting tired and slowing down. I feel huge and baby brother feels cramped. Part of me wants this baby out now but the other part of me enjoys the sleep I'm mostly getting now. As tired and achy as I am now, I can't really say I'm in pain. My back still feels strong, I have aches in the pelvis. Last time around I remember getting pain in my hips and shoulders from sleeping on my side but that hasn't happened this pregnancy. Our new bed is just way more comfortable. Probably one of the most annoying symptoms is losing circulation in my arms and hands when I sleep. I wake up from it and sometimes it takes awhile to get feeling back into them. At my 37.5 week appointment I was dilated to a 3 and 50-70% effaced. I was at a 3 with Charlie for nearly a month so that isn't too exciting but I wasn't this effaced so MAYBE this little guy will not be as late as his big brother. At my appointment today (38.5 weeks) I was still at a 3 and 50-70% effaced so not much progress in the last week. I feel like baby boy is getting lower and my heartburn has decreased so that's another good sign. I'm somewhat hoping that he comes in the next week because my mom is home for Spring Break and that will be perfect for Charlie to stay with her. I'm sure he will arrive right when he is supposed to and luckily we have wonderful friends here that are willing to help with Charlie. (I seriously get more worried about Charlie's accommodations than going through labor and delivery again) 

I guess that's all. Our little boy will be here before we know it!

Spring Day 1

We are excited that Spring is finally here and that we have been having relatively good weather. I've been getting extra tired these days keeping up with my busy Charlie so once swimming ended we have been staying home more. Our OMSI and children's museum outings have decreased as well. I still like to get out at least once a day, especially when the sun is shining.Charlie sure appreciates any outing so we made an extra effort to get to the park for the first day of Spring .

Charlie had never played on this playground before and he was making me laugh so much because he was scooting around it like an old man. When he climbed up high he would take tiny little shuffling steps until he could reach something he could hold onto. 

We played on the playground for only about 10 minutes when a man came walking by on the path and asked if anyone had a black car, there were only 2 other moms there who said they didn't, I asked if it was a black Jetta and he said "yes, with a car seat in it" He informed me that it had rolled backwards down the hill, I was shocked and asked if it had run into anything. He said it hadn't. It also surprised me because I was barely parked on a hill and I knew for certain that I had put the emergency break on. Charlie was not very excited to leave the park early and I was not that excited about hauling him away with my 9 month pregnant body but we walked over to the car and a couple of the park workers were there waiting by the car. They told me that the car had not hit anything and that happens at least once a year. They also showed me that the car was stuck pretty deep in the mud which would make it hard to get out but also probably helped the car stop before rolling more into the picnic tables or baseball diamond fence.

My car was parked in front of that smaller green pine tree, you can see the tire tracks from where it rolled.

And there it stopped.

Luckily we were at a large park so there were a handful of park workers. First I tried to drive out with no success. Then 4 workers tried pushing the car while I drove and it was still stuck. It was some deep mud. A park worker was going to call a tow truck but I wanted to call Max first and see if he could pull the car out with his work truck. He headed right over with his co-worker who had a larger truck with a tow cable. In the meantime, another park worker happened to show up in a truck that had a tow cable.  Luckily, the park truck was able to pull my car backward into a gravel patch and I was able to drive out of the park. I felt so lame but all the workers were so helpful and kind. I called Max who was almost there letting him know I was out and on my way home,  apparently his co-worker, KJ, was bummed because he was excited to try out his truck and tow cable. haha. They were at our house when I got home. KJ then went back to work and Max stayed home for lunch and to get some things done on the property. It was quite the experience that left me a bit traumatized but I was so grateful that no one was hurt and nothing was damaged except a little bit of the soggy grass. 

Moving on with our first day of Spring, Max and I got to go on a date to a graduation ceremony for a class that he took through his work. It was a  construction management course done through Turner Construction. It was quite the event held in the Governor's Hotel downtown. 

We even hired our first ever babysitter. One of my piano students, Faith, turned 12 a couple months ago and has been wanting to watch Charlie for awhile. My mom or good friend are usually available to watch him when we go out so we hadn't asked Faith yet. She is very responsible and has spent time with Charlie before during our piano lessons so we thought we would give it a try. She did great and Charlie had a great time.

Anyway, we got to the event a little late due to traffic and parking. When we arrived we spoke with some people and had some appetizers and drinks. There was a short ceremony then each student was presented with a plaque/certificate. It was pretty fun and we are excited that Max is done with that class because he will be home earlier on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He also learned a ton and did a lot of great networking for the company. Anyway, our first day of Spring was quite eventful!

Baby Shower

This last weekend, we were able to celebrate our new baby boy with a shower thrown by my amazing Sister in Law, Lisa! There really isn't much we need as we are having a boy but Lisa was still able to throw an amazing party and made us feel extra special. 

I stole some of her pictures because I was too lame to capture some of the amazing details she put into the party.  Here is her blog post about the party and the location from where I stole her photos!

Lisa's post

 We walked in to the party to see this beautiful food table with a Greek theme...our mouths watered. She cooked and prepped almost all of it! Wonder woman I tell you....

She handmade all these decorative pom poms. It really added to the party. Have I mentioned that this woman is a full time student and a mother of three very active boys?

The event was held at Annette's house (our river Grandma)

Lisa made these amazing prizes for the games. In each bag was a scented candle, two tea bags, some hot cocoa, and some bath salts. And she made those awesome tags too!


As people arrived to the party we mingled and ate some of the delicious food. Lisa had also created an amazing scrapbook for people to write parenting advice, especially advice about parenting multiple children. She had also placed out a calendar where people could guess baby's due date and stats. Also, she had custom created an amazing CD full of lullabies and songs that included the word baby in it.

And I got my own Tiara!  

Cousin Kim, Aunt Cindy, and Cousin Stephanie!

Lisa had prepared 3 fun games. The first was Baby Bingo. I love bingo and she handmade each bingo card! We sadly didn't win! I can get competitive!

We also played the "measure how big you think my belly is" game. Somewhat awkward but still fun and I still have the measuring tape from Charlie's baby shower so I can compare how big my belly was then and now. Max almost won this one which made me pretty proud but then Kim beat him by a centimeter. I was impressed they were able to get so close. I always think it's funny when people think my belly circumference is much bigger than it actually is...if I made an actual guess I bet I would have guessed much bigger than I am.

We then played "How many stuffed animals can Rebecca diaper in 30 seconds" I only got three but that is just because I like to make sure I do a thorough job! No leaks for those animals.

We were then able to eat cake and ice cream and open gifts! Everyone was so thoughtful. We got a couple new outfits for baby brother which is exciting for him to have a couple things that are his own! He are also set on diapers and wipes for awhile. My cousins even brought a box of Charlie sized diapers. We got nice burp cloths (I had previously been using old diapers that were my brother's burp cloths 20 years ago) and Baby Brother got his own handmade quilt from Grandma Baertlein. Charlie loved helping unwrap the presents.

Our beautiful and hardworking hostess.

Charlie tried to wear his little brother's clothes as we unwrapped them.

 Little miss Chloe saw the camera point at her at this is the face she made....reminds me of her mama!

Overall, it was an amazing baby shower and my little family felt so spoiled. I don't know if we can truly express our gratitude to Lisa and all the organization and time she spent in making this such an exceptional party. All the details were carefully planned and executed! She is amazing and we want to thank everyone that came to show their love for our new little boy! 

Photo Practice

Last week my friend and I attended a 5 hour intro to digital photography class. It was pretty long for two pregnant ladies but we both learned so much on how to use our cameras. It was well worth the price of the groupon! We learned tons on lenses and exposure and basic functions of my camera that I had no idea how to use. I walked away feeling like I could start taking better pictures. Now each time I practice with my camera I've been learning something new and it has been very gratifying. I'm trying to get all the knowledge I can before baby brother comes so we can get some decent newborn and sibling pictures, especially since our amazing personal photographer lives SO far away! It's made me pretty excited to see major improvements in the pictures I've been taking and I've been so excited that I've had multiple photography dreams...weird! I still have tons to learn...and eventually I will start learning about photo editing which I know nothing about.

Yesterday, Charlie and I set up a practice photo shoot to get ready for baby brother. Since Charlie is an extremely wiggly toddler and will not look at the camera very often, we needed to use stuffed animals.

We started with cow... 

It didn't take long for Charlie to realize that I was playing with his animals so he jumped in and pretended to sleep .

He thought he was so funny when he revealed that he wasn't really sleeping...only pretending! 

So then the photos ended up being of Charlie playing with his cow.

Apparently Charlie thought that all that posing must be making cow thirsty so they took a snack break.  

I gave Charlie some fruit snacks to share with his cow but he was very content eating them all by himself.

So then we went outside to get some practice with the direct sunlight, cloudy, and shady lighting.  

I was finally figuring out how to focus on what I wanted...

Later in the day I had a doctor's appointment. (I was able to get an ultrasound to see that baby is head down...and doing great...very exciting but also not the point of this post)

When my appointment was finished I enjoyed a couple moments to myself looking over Portland. There is a great view from up on the hill where my doctor's office is, and it was a beautiful day.


I was able to zoom in to see OMSI!

The clouds looked unreal 

And there was the muddy Willamette River.

And life-flight flew right over my head which was pretty exciting.

So the point is, my camera was an awesome birthday present and I feel like it is the gift that keeps on giving. I get so excited about learning and practicing more!